by a phalanx of guards. Some of them veered off to retrieve my luggage. One of them took my briefcase and shouted, “Welcome home, sir,” while the others formed a living circle around me, shielding me from the wind, escorting me toward the door a few dozen yards away. They walked quickly, heads down, mindless of the ice-slick stone beneath their feet. Surefootedness is another advantage werewolves have over humans.
The warmth of the building was a shocking, if welcome, contrast to the bitterness outside, as was the silence of the carpeted corridor after the roar of the wind and the screech of the chopper blades. Though I had only been exposed to the elements for a few moments, my skin was chapped and my coat was stiff with cold.
Had I been in wolf form, of course, I would not have suffered any of those discomforts. In our natural state, we are all perfectly adapted to this environment.
“Do I have time to freshen up?” I asked, pulling off my gloves.
“I’m afraid not,” the young man who had taken my briefcase replied, “He’s waiting. However,” he added, as though hopeful of making up for bad news, “there’s a bottle of very good Madeira waiting in your quarters, and we’re having salmon cakes for tea.”
“Well,” I murmured, more to cheer my companion than myself, “that’s something, I suppose.”
The elevator was waiting. Three of the highest-ranking bodyguards stepped in with me; the others took the service elevator with my luggage.
There was no reason to assume, of course, that any of this meant bad news. The abrupt summons, the short deadline, the air of urgency…Sebastian St. Clare was a man who was accustomed to having his orders obeyed and having them obeyed immediately.
In the past six months, I had received exactly this kind of summons no less than eight times, and each meeting, it seemed, had been more unpleasant than the last. I was beginning to suspect our esteemed leader was enjoying the power he held over me. One thing was certain: Sebastian St. Clare would never let me forget that I had come into my position by accident, not by right.
The elevator covered the twenty floors in as many seconds. I had reason to wish, as I almost always did these days, that the castle was not equipped with quite so much technical sophistication. It seemed to me that everything was moving too fast lately.
We stepped out into the corridor. Lushly carpeted in royal blue, paneled in gold-tipped mahogany, this part of the complex was, in fact, the heartbeat of the corporate headquarters. I was relieved. If the meeting was to take place in a business environment, at least it would be on a level I could understand.
I took off my coat and handed it to my escort as we started down the hall. The muted chirrup of telephones and the hum of office machinery from behind heavy paneled doors were the only sounds that accompanied our passage, though if I tried, I could hear the conversations that were taking place over those telephones—on both ends of the line. My hearing, even by werewolf standards, was superior.
I wasn’t interested in eavesdropping, however, and I was too anxious about this visit to play games. I said to my escort, “I don’t suppose you have any idea—”
The young man shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve only just been assigned to this level. I promise I’ll be more prepared next time.”
One corner of my mouth turned down dryly. I was quite certain that, by the next time I was called home, this cooperative young man would be reassigned. One of Sebastian’s favorite tricks was to continually reassign my personal assistants, just to keep me on my toes…or off guard, as the case might be.
We reached the set of tall double doors at the end of the corridor. The inner sanctum. I took a breath, straightened my tie, and ran my fingers through my long blond hair, correcting what the wind had mussed. I held out my hand for my briefcase.
The young man handed it to me, then seemed to hesitate. I glanced at him.
“Sir,” he said, looking tense and uncomfortable. “I just wanted you to know that…well, there are quite a few of us who think it’s time for a change, and we’re behind you. Sir.”
Some of the tension went out of my shoulders, and I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. “That’s good to hear.”
But there was no way to postpone it any longer. I straightened my shoulders, and opened the door.
The Keeper of the Gate—as I like to refer to her with a certain dry sarcasm, and then only in my secret thoughts—was built like a battleship in shades of iron gray, with a beak of a nose and jet-black eyes and an angular, jutting bosom that could intimidate the strongest man. Her official title was administrative assistant to Sebastian St. Clare, but I did not know a werewolf in the empire who would care to take her on in battle.
She did not like me. She had made that clear from the beginning.
However, protocol dictated that she get to her feet when I entered, and she did not defy it. “Sir,” she said. Though the greeting might be interpreted as deferential, the tone never could. If anything, in fact, there was a glint of disdain in her coal black eyes. “Good afternoon. You are expected.”
I refrained from replying that, since I had been awakened at 3:00 a.m. with a royal summons and had been traveling for almost ten hours, I certainly hoped so. Instead, I inclined my head and replied pleasantly, “Ms. Treshomme. You’re looking lovely as always.”
She did not bother to disguise a contemptuous sniff as she came around the desk and crossed to the inner door. She knocked once and opened it. “Monsieur Duprey,” she announced, and stepped aside to let me enter.
I took another breath and straightened my cuffs, refusing to be rushed. I adjusted the weight of the briefcase in my hand, gave Ms. Treshomme my most charming smile and stepped inside.
No one from the human world had ever been here, of course. If they had been, they would have been astounded. Where once the castle had served as a fortress to defend its occupants from their enemies and shelter them from the elements, it was now a showcase for the enormous success we had achieved. On one wall was a simply framed postimpressionist canvas worth approximately five million dollars. On the other was an undiscovered Matisse whose value was incalculable. The carpet on which I trod was Persian and over nine hundred years old. The enormous glass pedestal desk in the center of the room was actually a sculpture by an artist who was at this moment exhibiting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Glass shelves, expertly lit, displayed artifacts and objets d’art whose age ranged from a few hundred to several thousand years old. Long ago, in times mostly forgotten, Castle St. Clare had been a sanctuary against outside persecution. Now it was an unabashed showcase of our triumph over the outside world.
The focal point of the office was a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over a breathtaking vista of snow-shrouded mountains and windswept plains. Before that window with his back to me stood Sebastian St. Clare.
He was a big man, wide-shouldered and tall, with a magnificent mane of full white hair that fell below his shoulders. He was dressed in woollen pants and a fur vest with rawhide catches. As always, I felt overdressed and underprepared in his presence.
The elder werewolf certainly heard my entrance, but he chose not to acknowledge it for a full two minutes. I stood in the center of the room and waited.
When Sebastian St. Clare turned, there was no welcome in his face, or his voice. “You’re late,” he said flatly.
I replied pleasantly,
